Traveller culture awareness workshops in Co. Wexford are improving the ability of employees in state agencies to deliver services for the Traveller population. The workshops have also been held in primary schools, increasing awareness among the general school population and instilling pride among Traveller children in particular. Such workshops also take place in other counties; we focused on one county to see the difference they make.

Laura Myles is a community worker with the North Wexford Traveller Community Health Programme, and she told Changing Ireland about their work. Recently they ran a workshop in St. Senan’s Primary School in Enniscorthy which has a big Traveller population.

“Some of the Traveller kids were in the classes we went into. Two little lads in particular put up their hands before we left and they said: ‘We’re Travellers’ and they got talking about their wagons and horses. They were so quiet up until we were just about to leave, but it was like they had a sense of pride. They were proud that we were there,” said Laura.

A teapot and a kitchen table-cloth called the Traveller Wheel of Culture are often at the centre of their workshops. The tablecloth was designed by the Traveller women.

“It’s very visual and it’s good for kids in school,” said Laura. It shows aspects of family, religion, the tradition of travelling, music, weddings, rosary beads, creativity, horses, the Traveller language Gammon, and ‘the Patron’ (an annual blessing of graves).

There are two projects in Wexford because the county has a high Traveller population.

Laura and her colleagues are employed by Wexford Local Development with funding from the HSE’s South East Traveller Health Unit (SETHU). There are nine Traveller women employed as community health workers in Wexford and in 2011 they developed their first cultural awareness toolkit for delivering training to service providers.

Last year, SETHU and associated Traveller projects developed an updated cultural awareness package for face-to face delivery to HSE staff, the guards, teachers and all the service providers that members of the Traveller community use. The training is delivered by the Traveller Community Health Projects across south-eastern counties.

Fearful to happy

Traveller community health worker Elizabeth Berry, who is a Traveller, said the workshops give the settled community a better understanding of Traveller culture and traditions.

“A couple of years back in Gorey we had a coffee morning. And a lot of the women that use the centre were used to us, but (that morning) there were one or two new faces. And one of the women said when she came in she was kind of frightened. She said growing up as a child that her parents told her ‘Don’t mix’ (with Travellers) so she always had that fear as a child.

“As the morning went and we explained the culture and what was important to us, she was the happiest woman ever going out. She said that she missed out on so much as a child and that kind of took away all her fear. So that was a person that never knew nothing about Travellers, that was told never to go there, have nothing to do with them. So it gives the settled people a better understanding of our culture and our beliefs. It helps with discrimination as well,” Elizabeth said.

What kind of things do they teach in the workshops? Elizabeth’s colleague and fellow Traveller Bridget Connors explained:
“Nomadism and travelling around like they did years ago, making cans. It’s about making the younger Travellers that haven’t done that aware of where they came from. A lot of them are living in houses now, so we teach about the culture of horses. And religion, going to mass, and that they believe in speaking to a priest if they got sick or anything.”

Elizabeth added: “If there was anyone sick in the Travelling community, where the settled people would go to counselling, we believe in going to a nun or priest and asking them to pray for us to make the situation better. The settled probably have that as well, their beliefs and holiness, but we prefer going to a priest or a nun or a healer, than to talk it out with a person.”

Nomadism

Regarding the traditional nomadism of the Travelling community, Elizabeth said: “A lot of the travelling has been taken away from us. Most Travellers now are in houses, they’re mostly settled. The younger people getting married are still in caravans in the gardens of the parents’ houses. But as soon as June comes, they do go travelling for maybe five or six weeks. They’re trying to keep that tradition going. At the end of August, they’re straight back into their houses. The five or six weeks of the summer is very important to keep the tradition going.”

Staying in school

Bridget added: “We’re trying to get the younger children to stay in school. They are way behind the settled kids, a lot of them are leaving school early. There’s a lot of literacy problems.”

According to Laura, the workshops “are really helpful for that”. She added: “Primary school is fine for most children, not just Traveller children. They’ve the one teacher, they’ve the same break times. They go from that into secondary school, and you’ve got nine teachers, different times, different rules. Some Travellers, as well as settled kids, struggle with that. So there is early school leaving.

“We trying to encourage the youngsters to stay in school for as long as they possibly can. We talk to the school liaison officer and parents, make sure that they’re aware of the supports in the school. Or if the school is having problems we might be able to help.”

She continued: “The cultural awareness training (for workplaces) has much more structure to it. But it’s amazing really, Travellers are an ethnic minority group, and that was recognised by the Irish government back in 2017. And we talk about that at our cultural awareness training, and you will be surprised the number of people that don’t know that. These are working adults in services like the HSE who didn’t even know that that was recognised.

“The delivery of these workshops and the cultural awareness training, it’s bringing pride in the culture. Individuals shouldn’t be ashamed or forced to be ashamed of their culture.

“Racism and discrimination (including institutional racism) are part of the cultural awareness training. That’s important. Some people who come to the training say they never had any idea that Travellers would face discrimination on a daily basis,” she said.

Traveller women deliver the training

Laura does not deliver the training. She said:

“It is the Traveller women, because it is their culture so they talk about the culture and they deliver that aspect of it. But sometimes it can be challenging for them as well, because sometimes people’s concept of Travellers can be what they see in the media.

“Delivering cultural awareness training is just one part of our work. We have all the other work to do. We do a lot of outreach work and we run Traveller women’s groups.”

Health care projects

Currently, the North Wexford Traveller Community Health Programme is a part-time programme, running for three days a week. Laura believes the project would greatly benefit from additional funding to expand the number of hours the community health workers can operate.

She concluded: “There should be a team of Traveller women in every county that solely deliver Traveller cultural awareness training. Most counties have a primary health care project, and most counties would have some form of delivery of Traveller cultural awareness, but that’s very much dependent on the hours. It’s dictated by funding.”

More info, including contact details: https://www.wld.ie/traveller-community-health-programme/